1. Sulah by Toni Morrison
Though not the title character, the one- legged matriarch of this novel reveals the enigma behind motherly love.
2. Cuckoo by Madison Clell
A powerful graphic novel exploring one woman's experience of dissociative personality disorder
3. Lessons in Taxidermy, a surgical memoir by Bee Lavendar
4. Lilly Daw and the Ladies by Eudora Welty
I love this story for its black humor and impeccable character studies of pathologically righteous church ladies, hell- bent on preserving the "innocence" of a developmentally disabled woman. Fortunately, Lilly has made her own plans, and the ladies are the ones who are forced to adapt.
5. A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
I read this one in high school- it's been a while so I can't really say much about it except that the grandma in the story is a blind African American woman.
6. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Griley
My favorite chapter from this memoir of childhood cancer unfolds in the under- staffed wing of a children's ward and ends in an animal testing lab.
7. A Christmas Memory Truman Capote was famous for publicly undermining colleagues on the New York literati circuit, deftly eviscerating his foes with an acerbic wit. It's hard to believe that the same mind produced this astonishingly sweet memoir, the unlikely love story of a lonely boy and his favorite aunt.
8. Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor
Note to Ph.D's- avoid hay lofts, door to door Bible salesmen. Why is it that southern writers have such an uncanny knack for disability lit?Though not the title character, the one- legged matriarch of this novel reveals the enigma behind motherly love.
2. Cuckoo by Madison Clell
A powerful graphic novel exploring one woman's experience of dissociative personality disorder
3. Lessons in Taxidermy, a surgical memoir by Bee Lavendar
4. Lilly Daw and the Ladies by Eudora Welty
I love this story for its black humor and impeccable character studies of pathologically righteous church ladies, hell- bent on preserving the "innocence" of a developmentally disabled woman. Fortunately, Lilly has made her own plans, and the ladies are the ones who are forced to adapt.
5. A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
I read this one in high school- it's been a while so I can't really say much about it except that the grandma in the story is a blind African American woman.
6. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Griley
My favorite chapter from this memoir of childhood cancer unfolds in the under- staffed wing of a children's ward and ends in an animal testing lab.
7. A Christmas Memory Truman Capote was famous for publicly undermining colleagues on the New York literati circuit, deftly eviscerating his foes with an acerbic wit. It's hard to believe that the same mind produced this astonishingly sweet memoir, the unlikely love story of a lonely boy and his favorite aunt.
8. Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor
9. The Incomplete Quad by David Sedaris
In this short story, David Sedaris revisits his experiences working as a PA to help pay for college. His employer is a disenchanted quadriplegic coed. The two combat ennui by hitchhiking, shoplifting, getting wasted and unapologetically exploiting ablists at every turn - a wickedly irreverent tale of friendship.10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
wife + attic + seductive governess = glorious English melodrama!
